Thursday I hung out with friends, then Friday evening I went to the lake for a slumber party and the girls' game. We left Denton around 7pm after a quick stop at the grocery store for supplies. I spent a wonderful hour and a half chatting with Anne and
finari on our drive.
We arrived at the lake around 9pm.
tempest_sky and
lolafae were already out and about, but Tim saw us drive up and had us hop on his golf cart. He scooted us over to a field and we got to see several deer just barely beyond the headlights of his cart. Then we went to the point where the others were and spent some time star gazing.
finari saw the Milky Way Galaxy for the first time. She also saw like six falling stars. After that, we went back to the house, watched Van Helsing and fell asleep.
Saturday morning we woke up, showered, and had breakfast. Then we had our game.
Gamer geek stuff now... It was 100% combat this time, which was tolerable after about nine (or ten?) games of pure role-play. ^_~
finari's character first changed (whee!),
tempest_sky's character awoke, and my character, after finally losing the desperate hold on her own sanity, first changed, too.
lolafae's character awoke last game, so she was already aware that things were not all as they seemed.
I think Lola is an Akanthus mage, and Tempest is a Thyrsus. Anne had an awesome idea for having them choose their Path. Anne chose one card to represent each Path and one card to represent each Arcana, and of course grouped the cards in threes, each Path and its two Arcana. Then, with out telling them any of this, she had the two of them chose the set that they felt represented their character the best. It worked out pretty well. ^_^
Finari and I both are Hunters in Darkness New Moons. Irakka? Heh. I still need to learn all the silly new terms for these old concepts. Although Anne already told us not to put too much stock into the fluff, so I think I'll just skip all that. This should be interesting... Finari's character is more of the sneaky type, and my character is more of the fighting type. It'll be interesting to see what different niches we work out for ourselves.
It works, though. I'm glad this new setting is more lenient on the mixing of the genres...
We played for about three hours, then had lunch and went into Denison to do some shopping at a little herbal shop. I picked up some henna, some crushed walnut shells, a pair of hair sticks, and some bergamot candles. Mmm.
When we finished in Denison, we went back to Tempest's place and put our characters on their new sheets. Whee! Then we went back out to the point to turtle-watch and catch the gorgeous sunset. After the sunset, we went back to the house and played with fire and roasted marshmallows. We left around 9pm to head back to civilization. It's so nice out at that lake.
Sunday morning's lesson was about music, so I brought my clarinet and played name that tune with the three-year-olds, who thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm very lucky they're not critics because I am
badly out of practice, heh. Then I let them play around with Matt's chanter, which is virtually indestructible. They enjoyed that, too. We went to my parents' house around 1pm.
annawick and the Lex were already there, so we lounged around and played with the munchkin. Rob, Sioux, and Kyr showed up around 7pm, so we hung around for another hour or two. Kyr is getting so BIG. I can't believe she's nine already.
Also, Mom and Dad picked up a camper trailer, one of those pop-up tent dealies, which I thought was
very cool. It'll be better for Dad, too, since camp set up will be way easier, and they love camping. Of course, we never camped in such luxury as kids, but I know they'll really enjoy it.
Monday evening after work, I just had a very chilled out, mellow evening.
Tuesday evening we had dinner at Buco di Beppo with my mother-in-law, our sister-in-law, Jessie, and the monkeys, plus their friend Max. Matt taught the monkeys the meaning of "selling your best friend down the river," so as to properly embarrass a friend in front of their family, where as I hurriedly explained the meaning of "Too Much Information!!" Those boys are so silly. ^_~ After dinner we adjourned to Audt's house, where I was soundly defeated at chess by a nine-year-old, in like six moves. Heh. I wasn't surprised, though. Danny is one very sharp kid.
Last night, I relaxed and watched several episodes of Firefly. I love that show. I can't wait until Serenity comes out on DVD!
Matt's taking his mom to the airport today, where she's heading back to Bangkok for a few months. We'll be out to the farm to do some winter maintenance, and perhaps start going out there for some shooting now that she's gone... She doesn't really like guns, so while she's home it's a little more difficult. Plus she always has a to-do list when we go out there. ^_~
Also, we're getting a new toilet. Our water bill doubled this past month. Ugh. The one we've got is 30 years old and the water runs through it all the time. Matt's going by Lowes to pick us out a new one and then we'll have it installed. Once that's done, we'll eventually have to look at getting our air conditioner's condenser fixed, since it leaks, too. Luckily it's over the tub so it just leaks straight down the drain, although it's stained the tub. /sigh. Ah, the joys of home ownership!
Work is going well. We're starting to gear up for the holidays, and the huge influx of orders that comes with it. We got a small taste this week of what is to come. It's going to mean overtime for the hourlies, and longer hours for the salaried. This is when pay-back for being salary comes into play, heh. We have an awesome production crew, some real quality employees, so I am confident that things will go smoothly, if a bit hectic.
Now I need to start working on Christmas stuff. List time!